‘You’re not one of them, are you?’ says the girl, barely able to trust this new adult stranger.
‘No. I’m not. I’m here to help.’
The little girl goes into the small toilet by the cloakroom. Neva presses her fingers to her lips to warn the child to remain silent. As the girl closes and locks the door, Neva hears soft tuneless whistling. She ducks into the broom cupboard under the stairs. Peering through the cracks, she sees an armed guard walking towards the kitchen. It’s only a matter of time before the guard finds the cook, then the alarm will go up and her chances of taking revenge will be gone.
Neva leaves the closet and follows the guard into the kitchen. He is totally relaxed and unaware of her. Behind him, Neva picks up one of the breakfast barstools. She hits the man with all her strength. The guard goes down, but he’s not unconscious. Neva delivers a precise kick to his throat. He falls back, gasping for breath. Another blow to the head and the guard falls back lifeless. There was some noise, but the house is big and Neva hopes no one was near enough to hear it. She pauses, catching her breath and listening. No alarm; all is quiet.
Neva pulls the guard into the pantry. She checks his pulse; he’s alive. She takes her knife from her boot, and slits his carotid artery.
There is a popping, gurgling sound as the guard’s last breath hisses from his mouth. Neva removes her knife and wipes it clean on the cook’s apron. Blood pools briefly from the guard’s throat, spilling onto the pantry floor, and then peters out as the heart stops pumping.
Knife in hand, she slips out of the kitchen, leaving the two bodies hidden in the pantry.
Down the corridor, Neva hears voices.
She presses her ear to the door and recognises Michael’s voice.
‘I don’t know what more I can tell you,’ he says.
‘Neva’s defection could be catastrophic. If we don’t find and retire her soon, we may find the Network itself is exposed,’ says Beech.
It’s been a long time since she heard Mr Beech’s voice but Neva would know it anywhere.
She sees him now, younger, wielding a cane, like an intimidating school master. She doesn’t recall if Beech ever used the cane on anyone. He carried it almost as an affectation. She had not remembered this when she saw him with Michael in London or before that when she googled him. It was as if the conditioning disallowed any memory of Mr Beech and only now, back in the house, can Neva permit it. Other information is returning to her as well. Things she had forgotten. Things she never wanted to remember.
There is a rush of terrifying recollections. Further abuse. A beating for one of the boys who they thought wasn’t toeing the line. He was black and blue for weeks, but was used as an example for the others who were made to inflict the thrashing on him in the first place.
You aren’t with us, you’re against us, they’d all been forced to chant as the blows fell.
Toby, she thinks. Or at least that was the name they gave him eventually. Where is he now? Does he work here? Or is he out in the field like she had been?
She wonders if Michael is experiencing returned, uncontrollable memories. She hopes this does not have a negative impact on him. She takes a tremulous breath; there’s no choice now either way. They are here and the plan must go ahead.
Neva moves away from Beech’s deep tones. His voice, though muffled through the door, has an ill effect on her. The hand holding the knife trembles. She is weakened here. Doubts seep into her mind that weren’t there before. The Network is everywhere. We are nothing without them. We are weak. What can she and Michael do alone?
Neva takes a controlled breath. She stills these uncertainties, strengthening her belief that they have to end this, no matter how hard it becomes. There is so much she doesn’t know, or can’t remember. But these qualms were placed in her mind to stop her betrayal, weren’t they? She calms herself. I’m strong; I’m death. Once again, she sees Ansell’s grave, daffodils marking the final certainty. The doubts are hard to suppress but this memory reinforces her resolve. She is sure of one thing: she will face expiry before she gives in.
She walks along the corridor, breathing deeply as she fights for control. Beech’s voice, now in the distance, feels less intrusive. The anxiety attack stills and she reins in her wayward emotions.
Neva reaches the staircase. The huge house remains silent. She recalls how very few people actually live or work here. A few teachers, trainers, who perhaps only come in a few hours a day. Back in her time, the recruits were kept in conditioning for most of the day. Quiet and controlled. But sometimes, like now, they are working on their physical strength and so are alert.
Neva weighs up what to do. The house is probably only a small part of the Network. There are new children here as well as some that are almost fully operative. Those will be dangerous. Their conditioned minds will fight hard for the Network. If nothing else, fear of their trainers will stop them from easy capitulation. She and Michael can get them out, but then where would they take them, and what was to prevent the Network taking others? It is odd that they only ever take seven in at a time. Neva doesn’t know why that is or if it matters. But Beech is behind it all. He has to die, and so do all of the trainers they find here. Maybe then the Network will be thrown into enough chaos that their defences are down. Without leadership, the whole thing will fall apart.
But even as she thinks this, Neva feels the tug of fear that always accompanies any rebellion.
I can do this, she thinks. I killed Tracey and no one had more control over me. Not even Beech.
But first, as agreed with Michael, security needs to be cut off from raising any alarms in or outside the house.
Neva presses against her stifled memories. Where did they keep the monitors? Ah yes. Next to the conditioning room. She passes the staircase and walks down the opposite corridor. The walk does not feel as long or as terrifying as it once had. This at least has little impact on her. Her eyes dart left and right as she studies the hallway, looking for signs of cameras even though Michael told her there are none.
They watch the children but not the trainers, Michael had explained as the plan was formed. That way there is no evidence of what has been done to them, should this place ever be discovered.
And so the dormitories are to be avoided, as well as the exterior. But not the bulk of the interior of the school, nor the conditioning room. No, the Network is too clever for that.
Neva reaches the security office. She doesn’t knock.
The guard is sitting with his feet on the desk. He has a mug in one hand and a sandwich in the other. As the door opens, he quickly removes his feet. Then, seeing Neva and not one of the teachers or other guards, he drops both the sandwich and coffee and leaps to his feet. The coffee cup smashes on the floor splashing coffee over the guard’s boots.
Neva’s knife is knocked from her hand as the guard throws himself on her. She crashes back into the door, slamming it shut and blocking herself and the guard from the hallway. She swings at him, lands a punch, but he has her by the throat with both hands and starts to squeeze. Neva brings her knee up, aiming between his legs, but the guard jerks his lower body out of reach; her blow brushes against his stomach, but not with enough impact to wind or injure.
They struggle. The guard smacks Neva’s head back against the door. She’s dazed for a second but then her training kicks in. She cuffs the guard hard on both sides of his head simultaneously, boxing his ears. The impact hurts enough to make him yelp and loosen his grip on her throat. Neva gasps in air before throwing her body weight into the guard, propelling him backwards and smashing him against the desk. She delivers a hard kick to his calf and the guard’s knee gives out under him, but he saves himself from falling and still fights back, punching her in the face. Despite receiving a hard blow, Neva doesn’t stop until her knee connects with the man’s groin. He crumples.
Neva kicks him in the stomach and then the head, over and over again until the guard no longer moves.
Then she turns
to look at the security monitors and flicks through the various screens until she’s located all of the guards that might be an issue. There are five more outside walking the perimeter, all armed to the teeth. Getting in was easier than getting out will be.
The guard on the floor isn’t wearing a gun belt, but Neva finds his weapon in the top drawer of the desk along with a box of bullets. She checks the clip, then fills the pocket of her jacket with the bullets. She puts the gun in the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back. She’ll use it when necessary but until then, stealth is important. She picks up her knife and holds it down by her side.
Neva turns off the security cameras and monitors. She rips out the wires, making them useless. She takes a breath and opens the security room door.
Chapter Seventy
Olive
Olive is unsettled. Michael’s presence and reception at the house unnerve her. After Mr Beech takes him from her office, she sinks down into her executive chair and leans on her desk, her head in her hands. She doesn’t feel well. She feels sick, as though she’s eaten something bad.
‘Why does he warrant such special privileges?’ Simone asks, and Olive has to agree she doesn’t understand Beech’s leniency towards Michael. He should have been searched on arrival. Instead they were told to greet him like normal. Yet here they are, knowing he should have come in sooner. None of it adds up. Olive doesn’t trust him at all.
They’ve all made sacrifices to be where they are. Olive perhaps more than most. She is brave to a point. She’s taken lives many times for the Network. A fight holds no fear for her, just the same as all of the operatives trained in the house. Failure to fight is never an option. Losing a battle even less so. Olive manages to cope with being here, day in and day out, passing those kids into the clutches of the new doctor. She cares for Mendez, despite what he did to her. And yet there isn’t a day that passes that she doesn’t want to press a pillow down on his face and feel him struggle under it. At those moments, Olive tells herself that Mendez suffers more being alive, old, decrepit, and now losing his mental faculties, than he would if she just put the old bastard out of his misery.
Now she tells herself all is well and meditates, saying her mantra over and over in her head to keep herself grounded. Sane. The house, after all, is her personal hell. At least, it would be if she let it get to her.
She’s never spoken out of turn, and she doesn’t now, even though Simone bitches about Beech. Olive won’t tell on her though; Simone isn’t her superior but she won’t risk saying anything that could bring about an early retirement for either of them. Silence, as she sees it, is not betrayal. Silence is the biggest lesson they have taught her. Even now, as the cracks begin to appear, the thought of breaking terrifies her. It would mean the end of everything. She’d be finished off by someone just as she’d ended Sharrick.
‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Simone says.
‘Do what?’ Olive asks. For a moment she’s glad of the distraction. She’s scared to think right now. Thinking is always dangerous. Sometimes, lost inside her own head, she fans the flames of her own destruction.
‘You know,’ says Simone. ‘What they do here. They took Amelie; I had to let them. That’s what happens when you sell your soul to the devil.’
‘You got what you wanted out of it,’ Olive says. ‘The money, your husband’s career.’
‘Every day he asked me, why not try for another one? But they wouldn’t let me, and I’m too old now. They have that much control.’
‘Would you really have wanted another child? After all, they might try to claim that one too.’
Simone weighs her up. ‘You know where Amelie is, don’t you?’
‘You know I don’t.’
For the first time, Olive sees real emotion in Simone’s face. It shakes her stoicism more than Simone’s questions. She sits back in the chair, turning her expression blank as Simone talks. She doesn’t want to hear more, but she also won’t stop her.
‘The day she was born, I looked at her and I knew I couldn’t keep her. She was so small! Born a month early, too. I tried not to love her. Every day, I did what I was supposed to as a mother. Then I got the nanny. I had to put distance between me and this fragile thing. Part of me hoped she’d have a defect, being so little. But she thrived and grew and was so intelligent. There was no way they wouldn’t take her. And then, one day she was gone. They made me bring her in myself. It was only then that I realised how much of my heart Amelie had. I rang Beech. I begged him. Please, not her. I can find you someone else. He said, “Simone, if you break our deal, you know what will happen. You and your husband will be finished, in every way.” I cried and he hung up on me. Cold bastard.’
Olive says nothing. She feels … nothing. Though this is just her telling herself not to feel. She repeats her mantra to deflect Simone’s tears.
‘Is she good at the job?’ Simone asks. ‘Tell me that at least.’
‘I can’t. I don’t know anything about her. You know this, Simone. They don’t ever tell anyone all of it. I only know about the ones I’m working with now. Nothing more.’
Simone stands. ‘My week here is over. I need to get back to London.’
‘You should,’ Olive says. ‘At least you don’t have to do it again for a while.’
Simone sighs, rubbing at her eyes. ‘I’ll go and pack. Then I’ll come back for you to sign my pass to leave.’
Olive can’t help feeling some sympathy as she nods her agreement. This place … this entity … has that impact on all of them. Except Beech, who is always happier here than anywhere else. This, the heart of everything his father started and he continued, brings him joy. Olive can’t imagine such glee in anything, especially not the house.
Simone leaves.
Olive sits again with her head in her hands, waiting for her to return, hoping she’ll be a long time. She’s feeling fragmented. She lied; she knows all about Amelie and where she is. Her predecessor did not redact as many documents as she should have. The filing cabinets are full of information about all the previous children. The truth is, Olive needed the access in order to do the right things with these new kids. The only file she hasn’t looked at is her own. She can’t bear it, knowing that her own parents, like Simone, probably sold her to the Network for some monetary gain. One day she may look them up. Perhaps they deserve a taste of what they created. She has the documents, hidden on a cloud space – should she ever find it impossible to resist.
But Olive knows she will never do this. She has to stay strong. Who else will make sure that these children don’t go through everything she did? Everything they all did.
She goes to her filing cabinet now and pulls out Amelie’s and Michael’s files to remind herself of the details. She opens Amelie’s first. The picture of the small, fragile child arriving at the house haunts Olive. She finds herself often looking at Amelie because she uses her as an example of how not to start the training. It’s why they changed things, almost twenty years ago. This is the reason they ended up with Neva and the knock-on of her defection.
Olive torments herself with the gory details for a time, then she closes the file and looks around her office. She doesn’t open Michael’s file. She’s saving that for later, when she feels stronger.
The house should feel like her own personal empire. How she’d delighted in the promotion! Then Sharrick came, bringing change in his wake. It was the moment that had started her own fall. But she’ll struggle against it. Remembering the past is not all it’s cracked up to be. For her it brings pain. She is fighting it, though. She doesn’t want to break; she wants to bend like a reed in the wind. Let it all flow over her. Look how well she’s held up! She has a lot to be proud of; at every turn, Olive has done what the Network asked.
Ten years here. That’s all they want from her and then she’ll be free.
She’s saved a lot of the money they rewarded her with for the assignments. Now, she is on a retainer of £120,000 a year. It is a cushy job
too. She just has to make sure everyone else plays their part and instils the mantra in the trainees to prevent betrayal. No risk. It is simple. Easy.
But then there are the ‘Simones’ she has to deal with. Those who have graduated to a different status, lesser than Olive’s but with more freedom. Simone can come here and cry, and regret, but she only has to attend one week, and not every year. Just when the Network feels it is time. She doesn’t even have to be conditioned. No, Simone was a willing recruit, unlike most who come for the week’s ‘top-up’, and she will go home now, and forget for a while that she sold her child into torture and a lifetime of servitude.
Olive’s irritation with Simone grows to anger followed by disgust. What was her deal anyway? The ungrateful bitch! She has it all!
Olive has never wanted children. Or a lasting relationship. She finds any form of commitment inconvenient. Early on, she underwent surgery. A minor procedure in the scheme of things, a sterilisation. She doesn’t regret it. She knows that any child she might have had would have been taken from her. She saw it with another recruit, a girl in her own year. They called her Creda. She was sixteen at the time, and, first assignment under her belt, she’d been ready to move on to the halfway house. But Creda was stupid. After her first kill, she had sex with two of the security guards. She’d been active with one of them for a while, but the house leader had turned a blind eye until she became pregnant. They’d kept her back at the house until the kid was born. Then the baby, a girl, was taken away. Fostered probably, until the day she’d be brought in and become absorbed into the Network.
A year later, Creda, now seventeen, had joined Olive at the halfway house but she was subdued. She had confided that the security guards in question had been ‘retired’. Their punishment was not for sleeping with her, but for not taking precautions with a valuable asset. Olive hadn’t been sad for the guards. They had tried to interfere with all the girls, Olive included. They were forceful about their interest, and Creda and Florence had given in, thinking it would gain them some privileges in the future. But Olive avoided being ‘caught’ alone with any of the men. She saw them looking at her, heard crude comments about how they had ‘broken in’ the other two, and she didn’t want to be used that way. She went through enough at the house as it was. The policy regarding interaction with the trainees and the guards had changed dramatically since then. They were warned they were not to have anything to do with the students at any time. Any deviation was quickly dealt with. Olive took a personal interest in this and made sure the guards were never permitted alone with either the boys or the girls. She’d also implemented a vetting system.
The House of Killers, Book 1 Page 28
